Labour described the Tory leader as "a desperate man who has made a terrible mistake". Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, refused to apologise for suggesting that he was a racist. "I believe the Leader of the Opposition is playing the race card," he told MPs.

Margaret Beckett, Leader of the Commons, said: "Not for the first time, William Hague has got himself into a hole. He should stop digging, instead of continuing to cause offence to the Taylor family." The statement from Richard and Gloria Taylor saying they were "unhappy" that Mr Hague had decided to use their 10-year-old son's death in a newspaper article on Sunday was an embarrassment for the Tories in the increasingly acrimonious political battle on crime.

Mr Hague's criticism of cuts in police numbers in London was backed by a community leader on the estate where Nigerian-born Damilola bled to death in a stairwell on November 27. Ali Balli, chairman of the tenants' association in Peckham, south London, said that crime had increased since police numbers were cut. "If there were more police on the beat, I don't think Damilola would have been attacked."

Mr and Mrs Taylor said in a solicitors' statement that they were distressed by Mr Hague's comments in a speech last week and in an article in The Telegraph saying that their son's murder followed reductions in police foot patrols through the crime-ridden estate where he lived.

Neither parent spoke publicly yesterday, but a press release issued by Neil O'May, of Bindmand & Partners, leading human rights laywers, said: "Mr and Mrs Taylor are very unhappy that Mr Hague decided to use their son's death in his recent article and speeches."

It claimed that the family had heard nothing by way of condolences from Mr Hague. "The use of their son's death as a political football has caused a great deal of distress. They hope that their son's death will not be used by others in this way again."

Mr O'May said that Damilola's parents wanted the focus of the media to be on the hunt for the murderers. Although the family's criticism was a public relations setback for Mr Hague, he went on the offensive with a series of television interviews to restate his concern about falling police numbers. He denied "playing the race card". Politicians could not "bury their heads in the sand", he said. Something had to be done about rising crime and falling police numbers.

Interviewed on BBC TV, he was asked if another term of Labour would mean more murders like that of Damilola. He said: "There would be more crime if police numbers and police morale continue to fall, which will mean, yes, that there are more tragedies that we will all end up discussing.

"Another Labour government means lower police morale. It means fewer police. It means more opportunities for criminals to commit crime. Who knows what form that would take and how many more families would be tragically affected by it?" Mr Hague said that Tony Blair's pre-election soundbite that Labour would be "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime" was "a sick joke".

Alastair Campbell, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, accused Mr Hague of becoming "more and more desperate with his comments on Damilola. "However, to leap into a sensitive murder investigation and seek to blame ministers when the facts about the case are by no means clear is low even by his standards."

The ferocity of Downing Street's response was seen at Westminster as a further sign that the Government was on the defensive over falling police numbers. Glen Smyth, of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said that Damilola's parents were wrong to attack Mr Hague, because politicians had involved themselves in the case from the start.

Last week Damilola's father said there were friendly bobbies on the beat when he lived in west London in the Seventies, but that was not the situation now.